Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (35 page)

Azile came up beside me. “You reek of Salvia. That plant is not indigenous to these parts. Where did you get a hold of some?”

“I don’t even think I could tell you,” I told her honestly.

“Try.”

“I went into the Holy Man’s tent.”

“The Landians
don’t have a Holy Man anymore, he left on a pilgrimage over twenty years ago and has not come back.”

“You asked me to tell you what happened and I am, have you ever known me to lie?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, yes, actually I have, but I don’t think that this time you are.”

“He showed me things,” I stated. “Nothing that will help our present situation, though,” I added when I realized she was looking at me.

I could still feel Azile scrutinizing me, but she said no more on the matter.

It took a couple of days to get back to my namesake town, but the time drifted in a haze for me. I was haunted by memories I had no remembrance of ever making. Drababan the giant Genogerian being among them. We were friends once, I could only ponder on how something like that could even happen. All I knew was that I’d be thrilled if we could hook up again, he looked like he could eat werewolves for lunch.

Talboton went a lot like I expected it would. The council really didn’t want to hear anything about what we speculated, and was even less impressed with what we were asking for. And how could I blame them? We were asking them to diminish their guard to help communities that they had little to no ties with.

It was Bailey that fought tooth and nail for them to see our point. In the end we got something, but it was like lighting a fire to stop a flood; basically it wasn’t going to do shit. Talboton agreed to send ten men to four different communities with five hundred rounds. And that wasn’t each…that was total. Each man or woman would have fifty rounds – less than two full magazines. They had bows and swords as well,
but by that point, we might as well start throwing rocks. Then there came the question of would the other villages accept our aid. Ten armed people could actually control an entire population. They might not be so inclined as to let us in even if it was for their safety.

Getting man to get over his innate distrust of strangers was not going to be easy. And then there was also the problem if Xavier decided to do an ‘end around’ on us. There were only so many frontier places we could assist; if he went further east, he would find places ripe for the picking where Lycan and werewolves were only tales talked about by traveling merchants. Without firsthand experience, those towns would never prepare until it was too late.

Unbeknownst to me, Azile had arranged a plan with the Landians to track any movements of humans. The Lycan would have to bring their war machine into plaBaisit sizece before the moon turned full. Humans on foot were slow, noisy, and always left tell-tale signs of their passing; especially an assemblage of that many. We’d know soon enough if Xavier was trying to press further east.

Ten men and women of Talboton marched out to Denarth. I made sure I was not among them. The last thing I wanted was Lana hanging from my arm. I was to find out that the council had initially refused the ‘assistance’ but yielded after Lana wore her father down. I’d known that feeling once. Daughters could be relentless; Nicole, on more than one occasion, had worn me down to a nub to get whatever she had wanted. Then I’d always had the pleasure of dealing with my wife after she’d found out that I had once again caved to the wishes of my diminutive daughter.

The only time I’d ever held firm was when she’d wanted a mixed
-sex sleepover for her seventeenth birthday. I’d let her have it now if I could only hold her in my arms for just a moment. I stopped what I was doing. Nope…that was a lie, I still wouldn’t do it.

Wheatonville had been more responsive to the offer of aid. They had firsthand accounts of the slaughtering going on around them being as they were the closest community to the now destroyed and defunct Harbor
’s Town, a place in which they had done a fair amount of trading over the years.

Ft. Lufkin, which was really nothing more than some rolling hills and a small barricade, flat out refused any help and became hostile, which worked in our favor as the
refused gunmen came to Harbor’s Town and bolstered our beleaguered defenses. Azile had decided this was where we would set up shop. The farthest settlement to the south that anyone knew about, New Georgia also turned down the help, those soldiers unfortunately returned to Talboton.

I watched the moon every night with apprehension; we were in a state of war, and how strange it was to realize we were tied to a schedule. I’ve been in hostile situations and truly never knew when the next bullet, bomb, missile, or diseased mouth was going to strike. I don’t know if this was worse or better. Sure, there were the pros of being able to prepare; but, man, the apprehension…that’s the shit that wears you down. Every time you think of the upcoming fight, a heavy squirt of adrenaline cascades through your body, everything in its wake starts tingling, and then when your body catches up and realizes nothing is happening. You suffer a serious crash. This was the cycle, and I could see it taking its toll on these people who were essentially farmers and merchants. They had yet to fight for what they loved.

That’s not entirely true, fighting for one’s existence is a challenging job. Battling the elements, bugs attacking crops, the hunt for game, these are human endeavors to survive. But they had not yet had to fight a savage enemy that wanted only one thing: the destruction of their foe.

I’d seen battle-hardened Marines break on occasion, and besides me, those were on short supply. War sucks. There’s no glory in having your innards spill onto the ground, no dignity in having your head caved in. No songs of triumph as you’re hewn in half. The resBaisisidents of Wheatonville would fight because they had to. What was the alternative? I just wish we had a little more than rakes, shovels, sharp pointy sticks, and small hammers. The werewolves were stupid,
they only knew one direction, and possessed zero tactical sense, but they were merciless and strong. We’d inflict damage. I, however, had my doubts that Wheatonville would survive the coming onslaught. Tommy and Bailey were in charge of teaching the people some rudimentary fighting skills. Azile had locked herself away doing lord knows what, and me? Well, I was busy fretting heavily.

I repeatedly walked around the small city, looking at the myriad of weak spots and possible points of attack. Without a twenty
-foot high stone or steel wall, there was just not going to be any way to stop the invaders. A moat filled with alligators would be welcome. We had mid-sized logs we had chopped down, and sharpened the ends, stuck in the ground at a forty-five degree angle, and then propped up with a stout brace. So now as long as the werewolves ran into them we’d be all set. The best we could hope for was to create a couple of easy access points, ways in which to direct the flow of traffic, so to speak. I don’t know if werewolves adhere to the ways of water, flowing in the easiest route, but we could try.

I had a feeling that they weren’t going to line up all nice and pretty and wait patiently to get inside. The seven-foot high stonewall which seemed fairly daunting to me was most likely nothing more than a speed bump to a loping werewolf.

“What is your concern?” Bailey asked as she came up beside me. I was underneath one of the logs looking up.

“Not sure if these are going to do a damn thing,” I told her.

“These are formidable defenses.” She slapped the side of the tree.

“Yeah, we’ll probably cause a few stubbed toes for sure,” I told her. “Maybe rip off a claw or two…but they’ll hurdle these easy enough.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We let them.”

She looked at me questioningly.

“They have to land somewhere,” I told her. She looked at me a moment longer. The dawn of recognition lit up in her eyes.

“I’ll get a crew on it now,” she replied.

I walked away. I had yet to walk around enough times to create a groove. It was, however, only a matter of time.

It was three days before the full moon when we received word from the Landians. A large contingent of humans had been spotted on the farthest western point of the lands they roamed. The Lycan party would never have been spotted if the three Landian men hadn’t been out on a hunting party. The large mountain lion they had been tracking had been responsible for the loss of seven of their goats, and they had been single-mindedly determined to keep that number at the max. That was, of course, until the chained line of humans began to make their way past. The men, a father and his two sons, had hid behind a grove of trees as the column passed.

***

“Had to have been a couple of hundred,” Redd, the father, had told Inuktuk when he haduk font raced back to their summer encampment. The mountain lion had been completely forgotten.

“
Are they heading east towards Talboton?” Inuktuk asked.

The man shook his head. “They were heading due south, I think doing their best to stay hidden as long as possible.”

“It has to be Ft. Lufkin,” Inuktuk said.

“Will we help them?” Redd asked.

“No, there is nothing to be gained there but the death of our people.”

“If the fort falls…”

“I know what it means, Redd. All that will stand between us and the Lycan is Talboton. This is not an easy decision, but I will not smash Landians against the rocks of futility. Ft. Lufkin was lost before it ever started. Get word to them of the impending invasion and invite them back here.”

“We do not have the resources,” he told her.

“I’d rather go to bed hungry than with the loss of those people on my mind. Go now, I need to get word to the Red Witch.

***

“Ft. Lufkin appears to be the Xavier’s next target,” Azile said to me. I had been summoned to her residence.  I hadn’t seen her in close to two weeks and those were her first words to me.

Good to see you, too
, I thought. Well, two people can play that game. “When are we leaving?”

“I do not believe that to be their primary target,” she said a faraway look in her eyes. “The men that saw them said there were only about a hundred or so humans.”

“Diversion?” I asked. “But why, what could he possibly fear from us? We’re not on the move.”